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Jackie’s Car Adventures: I am the Tortoise. It is my Spirit Animal

I’m in the market for a new car. I was going to check out some cars this weekend, but a magical thing happened today. I was driving to work and then all of a sudden, my RPM meter skyrocketed for a second. Immediately after that, I could tell that my car lost power. I had to push down on the accelerator more than normal to maintain my current speed. I thought I would be okay until this weekend while I shop for cars.

After work, I make my way to the sketchy parking garage we have to park in, and I turn on the ignition, throw her in reverse, and – NOTHING. I wasn’t able to drive in reverse. I put her in drive and was able to move forward just a tad. Well, that wasn’t too bad. But because I couldn’t drive in reverse, my friend had to come down and help me. Wasn’t a horrible ordeal. She pushed the car, I steered and then I drove out of the parking garage very slowly. As soon as I hit the street, I found that I could not drive above 20 mph. Fan. Phuqing. Tastic. She said sarcastically. It usually takes 25 minutes to get home.

That took about an hour and a half. Driving barely above 20mph with a car that sounded like it was dying, hazards on, and staying as far right as possible. I never knew this one street had so many damn hills!

But something interesting happened. Save for one asshole, no one bullied me. No one tried running me off the road (like they have in the past) because I was holding up traffic. I didn’t get honked at or yelled at; people just moved to another lane and drove faster than me. I was also worried that someone may accidentally ram into me, but that didn’t happen. Not one car was close to colliding with me. And every street I turned on yielded very little traffic. I was just moving forward on my merry way, keeping to myself, and hoping I didn’t run out of gas. My tank was losing some serious gas throughout this whole journey. The one left hand turn I had to make to get into my apartment complex was the easiest left turn I ever had to make. There were no cars; I was free to turn going as slow as ever. Even going through my apartment complex, I didn’t run into any annoying kids that like to run out into the street. It was incredibly tranquil.

Man. Is that what it feel like to be the tortoise? Because that was pretty damn cool.

This is "And Now Just Listen" featuring Avery, Nick, Justin and Lewes. We talk about games, tech, movies, and get sidetracked a lot. Interested in contributing? Email inquiries to andnowjustlisten@gmail.com.